Start with one large family featuring 18 children and throw in adoption, multiple special needs, homeschooling, public school and a whole lot of love with a little bit of crazy and this is what you get.

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Sunday, 2 November 2014

Junk in the trunk + Wrecking ball=FUN

This past weekend was Halloween, how we spend the day has changed over the years depending on our family's needs. In the past we have attended community bon fires along with firework displays put on by the local fire station and then there were years we would go swimming and back to Gran and Grampa's too make pizza. Since the adoption of our youngest 7 children a lot has changed because their abilities are very limiting.

It is important to us that the kids have memories of having fun on the various special days even if that "fun" isn't the same as their peers. This weekend's "family fun evening" started with a special "kid" dinner - nacho's. After dinner we had a games night, with multiple ages and abilities our games were tailored for everyone.Musical chairs with songs like the Monster Mash. Instead of using chairs we use small mats as getting up and down to a sitting position can be challenging. Other game ideas came from the television show "Minute to win it" and "Pinterest". Junk in the trunk brought out hysterical laughter and crazy dance moves from everyone - a small box filled with ping pong balls attached to a belt and worn around their waist. Each participant had to dance, jump and shake to be the first to empty their box. Defying Gravity - keeping an inflated balloon in the air was another game that we modified depending on the ability some kept 1 balloon in the air other had 2-3 balloons. Cookie Face was well received, a cookie was placed on the participants forehead and each person had to wiggle and move their face trying to get the cookie to their mouth without hands.

Say aaah - holding a popsicle stick in their mouth the children were challenged to balance as many sugar cubes as possible on it. For the children that found this game to challenging we had a variation of the egg and spoon race using a sugar cube and a spoon. Wrecking ball was harder than it looked, a tennis ball in the foot of pantyhose and then pantyhose worn on the participants head. The participant then swung the ball with their head trying to knock down 8 bottles of water.

After the games the younger children went to bed and the remainder of the family watch a movie.